Divided government doesn’t have to mean ineffective governing. Over the last 60 years some real progress in America has been achieved because of divided government, which is defined as one party holds the White House and the other party both houses of Congress.

In 1947-49, the Republican-controlled 80th Congress, which Democratic President Harry Truman called the “Do Nothing Congress,” sought to roll back New Deal legislation such as Social Security that was enacted between 1933 and 1946 by Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Democratic-controlled Congresses. The GOP also rejected Truman’s Fair Deal legislative agenda. After serving in the minority for 14 years, during which time labor made great strides, Republicans were chomping at the bit to re-shape the national agenda for business.

The Republicans passed many pro-business bills and looked for ways of undoing the New Deal, but they had miscalculated their political strategy. Not only did it ruin their chance to take the White House after 16 years of Democratic control – Truman won handily despite polls’ and pundits’ predictions to the contrary – they lost control of Congress to the Democrats for another four years. Republicans took power again with Dwight Eisenhower’s election to the presidency in 1952, but lost it again in the mid-term two years later.

As supreme allied commander during World War II, Eisenhower understood the need to work with people you disagree with. He easily grasped the congressional Republicans’ folly, and he knew that the overwhelming majority of Americans favored the New Deal because those programs improved their lives. The agenda of the extreme elements in his party left him wary. READ MORE »

Now that Philly will host the 2016 National Democratic Convention, I’m reposting an account of one of the more exciting times when the city hosted three conventions in the same year. The city last hosted a national convention in 2000, when the Republicans nominated George W. Bush. But in 1948, the city hosted three national conventions and Pennsylvania politicians were major players in the nomination activities. Below is an account of the decisions and activities at those conventions, and the role Pennsylvanians played in the 1948 election. Excerpts are modified from my 2008 book, Pivotal Pennsylvania: Presidential Politics from FDR to the Twenty-First Century.

At the beginning of 1948, few observers believed that President Truman was likely to win election to a full term. Truman had assumed the presidency after Roosevelt’s death on April 12, 1945. As often is the case, the American public warmly welcomed the new president. His approval rating as measured by a Gallup poll pushed 90 percent, but within a year it dropped to the low thirties. What happened?

Truman was handed two serious and growing problems, one a worsening economy and the second the expanding complexities of the Cold War. On the domestic front, when Truman ended the price controls that had been in effect during WW II, the resulting inflation fueled demands from unions that wages be raised. That in turn led to strikes in major sectors of the economy – steel, coal and automobiles. The new president twice ordered government seizures of the mines. Reacting abruptly and quickly in the face of a national railway engineer’s strike, Truman seized the rail system. Angry at the president’s action, a large number of labor unions deserted the Democrats in the 1946 midterm election, despite Truman’s persistent opposition to the Taft-Hartley Act, the 1947 law that Congress passed over his veto that placed restrictions on labor union power and activities.

With an economic slump in place, the Republicans captured both houses of Congress for the first time since 1938. The new Republican Congress made mincemeat of Truman’s domestic proposals.

Given this set of circumstances, a united Republican Party seemed likely to win back the presidency for the first time in twenty years. Sensing victory, Republicans had a bevy of possible nominees early in the year. Some favorite sons from 1944, including California Governor Earl Warren and former Minnesota Governor Harold E. Stassen were under consideration, but the major contenders seemed to be the 1944 nominee Thomas Dewey and Senator Robert Taft from Ohio. The conservative Taft, one of the party’s leading isolationists, was considered Dewey’s most important rival. However, Stassen, the most liberal of the Republicans (and later president of the University of Pennsylvania), won a series of primaries in the early months of 1948. This forced Dewey to abandon his strategy of staying quietly in New York and campaign actively for the nomination. READ MORE »

Just as Gov.-elect Tom Wolf puts education issues high on his agenda so did Pennsylvania’s first Governor Wolf in the early part of the 19th century.

Gov. George Wolf who served from 1829 to 1835 is remembered for his efforts to establish a public education system.

He won enactment of the Free Public Schools Act in 1834. This law provided for publicly financed education to children’s regardless of their family’s wealth or social position. It authorized local schools, elected school directors and an option to levy a county school tax. Adopting a school tax would implement the law and bring state aid. READ MORE »

With its centennial issue on the stands, The New Republic just went through an upheaval that ranks up there or even tops the legendary disputes that have enlivened the history of this influential magazine since its birth in 1914.

More than 50 of the magazine’s editors and contributors quit in masse last week after learning of a move by the new owner to replace editor Franklin Foer who resigned rather than being forced out.

The row is over what TNR will look like as it transitions from a print journal to a digital media company. We may find out sooner than anyone thought because of the departures.

To appreciate what the uproar is all about, it’s helpful to look at The New Republic as it built its 100-year tradition. And to understand that a great part of TNR’s appeal is that it includes a front section with opinion and quality reporting and a back section with essays on literature and the arts. READ MORE »

In 2012 the Democratic Party was confident with a new fangled coalition. Barack Obama had won 303 electoral votes. In many of those states the solid Democratic vote came from the wealthy suburbs around Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, Portland, and Philadelphia and from the inner city minority communities. An piece of that coalition were the elite university communities around Palo Alto, Cambridge, Madison, Ann Arbor, Berkeley, and Raleigh-Durham.

It was a bizarre bar bell alliance with the very rich and very well-credentialed at one end and the poor, minorities, unmarried women and very young at the other. It was a marriage of convenience. The rich and the well-educated wanted a green agenda and a liberal social environment. They were willing to support welfare programs for the poor in order to build a coalition for their environmental agenda, gay marriage and legal marijuana. The poor get to be subsidized in their poverty with an increased minimum wage, Medicaid funding, food stamps programs, disability payments, and unemployment insurance. White working class people play a minor role in this agenda.

Few Democrats have been mourning the loss of once solid Democratic West Virginia to the Republicans. That was a willing price to pay for shutting down coal mining – a central goal for upscale environmentalists. Nor was there much concern about the loss of Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee. On the broader national scale there didn’t even seem to be much concern about the loss of the white male working class vote. They were a shrinking minority. The Democratic Party’s future belonged to the growing non-white vote, the young millennials, the single white females, and the well-educated. Who needed the Keystone Pipeline? In fact, who needed the entire extractive industries? The future was in wind and solar. If by stomping on the fossil fuel production, thousands of hard-hats would lose job opportunities. So what –was the unspoken attitude of the party. White working-class men are unlikely to support wind and solar dreams, gay marriage and gun control.

In 2014 the Democratic Party paid a serious price for such smugness. In key Senate races white men voted overwhelming for the Republican candidates: Arkansas (69%), Kentucky (65%), North Carolina (69%), and Georgia (74%). In two close Senate races outside the South, the vote was strong: Iowa (58%) and Colorado (59%). In the House races Republicans picked up seats in such industrial areas as East St. Louis, Illinois; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Bangor, Maine; and Wilmington, North Carolina. Nationally, the middle class, those households making between $50,000 and $100,000 a year, voted 55% Republican.

Democrats saw serious deterioration in their own coalition. As Democratic strategist, Ruy Teixeira, admitted, “the powerful Obama coalition amassed for 2008 and 2012 needs maintenance and upkeep. Base-voter enthusiasm from people of color, young people, and unmarried women will not automatically remain at the high levels of recent presidential elections.” Teixeira is right to be concerned. This time Hispanic men voted 41% Republican; and the Republicans actually won white voters under 30 by 53% to 44%.

To build on these gains, the Republicans must establish themselves as the party of the working and the middle class. As Michael Barone put it, “Democrats see themselves as the party of the future. But their policies are antique. The federal minimum wage dates to 1938, equal pay for women to 1963, access to contraceptives to 1965.” None of these ideas speak to working and middle class voters. For example, subsidized pre-kindergarten and lower rates for college loans affect them at the margin. Infrastructure is hardly a Democratic idea. The interstate highway and the space program began in the Eisenhower Administration. The highway trust fund as long been supported by both parties. The Obama Administration $800 billion stimulus package was loaded with goodies for public employees and numerous pork barrel projects. Was there one major national project that came out of the entire cascade of that money? What was the employment pay off for blue collar workers?

A future economic program should focus on an unleashing the energy sector and incentivizing new technologies in manufacturing. A leaner more focused government can assist by simplifying and reducing the tax burden; thinning out the burdensome regulations developed under Obama; negotiating more trade agreements to expand export markets; creating a tax and regulatory climate that can attract foreign investment. The poor can be assisted with the expansion of the tax credit program tied to work. Community colleges, the great success story of higher education, should be given additional support so that young people can acquire the technical skills the new economy demands. Immigration laws should encourage talented people to come here.

The wealthy should be made to contribute not by raising their taxes, but by cutting their benefits. Tax breaks and subsidies that go to the rich should be eliminated and their entitlement benefits modified. The next Republican presidential nominee should make an assault on crony capitalism. The theme should be clear: reduce government dependency and increase economic opportunity. The image of country club Republicanism should be put to rest. Mitt Romney may have been a very able man. Unfair as it was, he seemed right out of central casting’s idea of such a Republican. Historically, the party has done well with candidates who rose from modest circumstances such as Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan. The candidate’s background should not only reflect a new message; but there actually should be one.

In evaluating Tuesday’s election, let’s realize that in fact it is the Republican Party that is on trial. Against a background of an unpopular Democratic president and a vast majority of people feeling the country is on the wrong track, the Republicans should have a big night.

What will constitute a poor night, a fair night, a big night, and huge night?

A poor night:

Senate: Republicans pick up seats only in South Dakota, West Virginia, Arkansas and Montana; fail to win close contests in Iowa, Colorado, Alaska, North Carolina, Louisiana, and New Hampshire. They lose seats in Kansas and Georgia with a net gain of 2 seats and fail to win the Senate.

House: Republicans hold the House but only gain about 5 seats.

Governors: The Republicans lose Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, Maine, and Wisconsin; and fail to gain seats in Colorado, Illinois, and Connecticut.

A fair night:

Senate: Republican gain South Dakota, West Virginia, Arkansas, Montana, Louisiana, Colorado, and Alaska; but lose Kansas and Georgia, gaining only a tie in the Senate and leaving the Democrats in control.

Senate: Republicans win South Dakota, West Virginia, Arkansas, Montana, Louisiana, Colorado, Alaska, and Iowa; and hold seats in Georgia, Kentucky, and Kansas, giving them a 53-47 margin and control of the Senate.

House: Republicans gain 10 seats.

Governors: The Republicans lose only Pennsylvania, hold Florida and Maine, and gain Colorado, Illinois, and Connecticut.

A huge night:

Senate: The Republicans gain all the seats in the big night scenario and add North Carolina, New Hampshire, and maybe Virginia.

House: Republicans gain 15 seats giving them their biggest majority since the 1920s.

Recently Mike Young and I wrote a column in which we looked at the possibility of a 50 to 50 U.S.Senate tie after the 2014 midterm elections. We referenced the brutal 50 to 50 U.S.Senate tie in 1880. Back in 2000, Gettysburg historian Mike Birkner and I wrote a piece describing the aftermath of that tie. I post that column, as it was then written, below as a reminder of at least the effects of one Senate tie.

While the country remains transfixed on the Florida presidential ballot controversy, another controversy, less visible, but one likely to become just as ugly as the Florida dispute, appears on the horizon. Control of the United States Senate hangs in the balance, as the Senate awaits the outcome of the U.S. Senate election in Washington State, where absentee ballots will determine whether the upper chamber of the congress is deadlocked 50-50. The Democrats have warned of chaos, should a 50-50 division actually occur, if as minority leader Tom Daschle has said, the Democrats do not get certain demands met. Daschle insists that the Democrats be given an equal number of seats on senate committees and, perhaps, co-chairmanships of senate committees.

The one precedent in Senate history of a divided chamber proved disastrous by almost any reasonable account. After the election of 1880, the Senate opened a special session in March of 1881 that began the 46th session of Congress. The Senate was divided 37 Republicans, 37 Democrats, and 2 Independents. The new president was Republican James Garfield, and Chester A. Arthur was Vice President. The stage was set for the reorganization of the Senate, which, in due course, would involve Garfield, Arthur, and the two senate Independents. One of the Independents was Illinois Senator David A. Davis, who had served on the Supreme Court prior to his election by the Illinois legislature to the Senate in 1877. Davis agreed to vote with the Democrats, but the other Independent, William Mahone, a conservative Virginian, was lobbied fiercely by the Democrats, and held his own counsel until the Senate role call when he, in dramatic fashion, sided with the Republicans. Mahone made a deal with the Republicans to Chair the Agricultural Committee and to control its patronage.

Since no president pro tempore had been elected, Vice President Arthur had the tie-breaking vote. The Republicans could not elect a president pro tempore because of absenteeism among its senators. The Democrats refused to give up the chairmanships they had held in the previous session. The special session ended in May 1881 with the Senate largely in chaos. Between May and October, when the Senate was scheduled to return, President Garfield was assassinated and Vice President Arthur become President. Strangely, it was President Arthur, still acting as President of the Senate, who called the Senate to order for the October session. Fortunately, by October several Republicans had resigned, giving the Democrats the majority. They elected Thomas Bayard of Delaware President pro tempore. As part of another deal, David A. Davis was chosen as the presiding officer of the Senate. Davis maintained his independence. He reasoned that, since the Republicans controlled the presidency and the House of Representatives, they should continue to hold the chairmanships in the Senate, even though the Democrats still held a two-vote edge. He did, however, give Democrats control of substantial Senate patronage, along with the posts of Secretary of the Senate and Sergeant at Arms.

If matters were not complicated enough, when Grover Cleveland and Thomas Hendricks were elected president and vice president, respectively, in 1884, the Republicans managed a nine-vote majority in the Senate. Unfortunately for them, Hendricks, who presided over the special session of the Senate that ran from March 4 to April 2, 1885, remained in the Chair, refusing to allow the Republicans to elect a president pro-tempore. Hendricks died in November 1885, temporarily leaving the nation without a vice-president and their senate without a president pro-tempore. The Senate finally resolved its leadership crisis when in the 48th Congress the Republicans were able to elect one of their own as president pro tempore, thus ending one of the more bizarre and chaotic moments in Senate history.

No one can foresee how the new Senate in the 107th Congress might resolve a 50-50 deadlock, but no resolution could be more bizarre than the Senate’s handling of its leadership and procedures in the early 1880s.

By:

Dr. G. Terry Madonna
Director, Center for Politics & Public Affairs
Chair and Professor of Government and Political Affairs
Millersville University

Abraham Lincoln’s reelection as president was anything but a sure thing in 1864. He had to overcome war-weariness in the North, scheming by prominent Republicans to deny him his party’s nomination and a Democratic party putting aside differences to rally behind their candidate, Gen. George B. McClellan.

On Aug. 23, Lincoln wrote a private note saying it was exceedingly probable that he wouldn’t be reelected and in that event he would pledge himself to cooperate with the president-elect to save the Union. READ MORE »

The “culture wars” that began some decades ago have never ended and are, in fact, more intense and divisive. In the broadest sense, two cultures are deeply at odds with each other. The chasm between the two political parties, symbolized by the Red State and Blue State dichotomy, is the manifestation of the cultural split.

Recently, Ron Brownstein of the National Journal wrote that the GOP represents a “Coalition of Restoration primarily representing older, white, religiously devout, and nonurban voters who fear that hurtling change is undermining traditional American values. Democrats in turn are championing a younger, more urbanized, diverse, and secular Coalition of Transformation that welcomes the evolution in America’s racial composition and cultural mores.”

In a paper published by Jesse R. Harrington and Michele J. Gland of Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, the authors use another category to amplify this division. They describe the states in various degrees of tightness and looseness based upon its strength of punishment and degree of permissiveness. As they explain, “Compared with loose states, tight states have higher levels of social stability, including lowered drug and alcohol use, lower rates of homelessness, and lower social disorganization. However, tight states also have higher incarceration rates, greater discrimination and inequality, lower creativity, and lower happiness relative to loose
states.” Not surprising, the 14 tightest states are mostly from the South; and the 14 loosest states are largely from the East and West Coasts. This, of course, tracks with the division between Red and Blue States.

Cultural attitudes can become embedded in individual behavior with long term political implications. The cultural changes of the 1960s, with its emphasis upon satisfaction over self-restraint and its contempt for traditional codes of behavior have percolated through our political system. The most recent manifestation is growing social acceptance of gay marriage and the legalization of marijuana, particularly in the Blue States. What else, other than cultural differences explains why Arkansas and Kentucky, two of our poorer states are voting more Republican; while Connecticut and Maryland, two of our richer states, are solidly Democratic.

Brownstein’s description of the Culture of Transformation vs. the Culture of Restoration gives an unsubtle hint of which one will eventually dominate. Culture is more easily transformed than restored, particularly when it trends with demographic change. Even if the Republican Party captures the Senate this fall or the White House in 2016, the trends are working against them. The older America of the 18th, 19th, and 20th century is already in the process of a profound transformation. As the “Greatest Generation” and its successor “The Silent Generation” fade away, and the “Baby Boom Generation” reaches old age, the generations that follow appear to have an attenuated connection to that older America. Their memories of the great events of mid-century America are pale and second hand.

America had from its origins monumental achievements – a successful experiment in self-government, religious tolerance, the development of a middle class, and medical and industrial breakthroughs. Its roots were in the Enlightenment and the Protestant Revolution, movements that placed an emphasis upon personal responsibility and social obligation. That America had its faults: the early toleration of slavery and the later toleration of Jim Crow. But the fundamental commitment to self-government eventually forced the country to correct those faults in the passage of the Civil Rights Amendments in the 1860s and Civil Rights and Voting Rights laws in the 1960s.

In the late 19th and early 20th century immigrants left their native land with few regrets and became enthusiastically “Americanized.” They and their progeny drank Coca-Cola, followed baseball, danced to big band music, loved rock ‘n roll, engaged in civic society, fought in our wars, and proudly claimed this country as theirs. Through mid-century America the schools and the popular culture re-enforced all those impulses.

What does it mean to be “Americanized” today? Indeed, many immigrants still embrace their new country. But what are they embracing? The culture that absorbed previous generations of immigrants is slowly disappearing. Patriotism, strict discipline, and religious faith were once openly encouraged in the public schools. In many public schools there were opening prayers, cadet corps, and tough minded teachers. Students that took the required course in American history came away with a strong sense of America’s uniqueness. It was a self-confident culture. Opening prayers in the public schools disappeared over 50 years ago (admittedly there was a strong constitutional argument against them). Yet their disappearance presaged what was to come: weakening academic and deportment standards, poor student performance, and a far more skeptical approach to the teaching of the American experience. International students who attend our universities often take courses in American history and politics taught by professors with a strong critical, if not Marxist, approach. No wonder many of these students return to their home country with a disdain for America.

A self-confident culture undergirds a self-confident politics. The America that conquered the Great Depression, won World War II, remade the politics of Western Europe, expunged militarism and fascism from Germany and Japan, stood up to the Soviet Union, saved South Korea, conquered polio, landed a man on the moon, created the computer and internet revolution, and won the Cold War was not ashamed of its past. Slowly, a softness insinuated itself into our public life. Self-expression trumped self-control; public vulgarity became the coin of public humor; and the slightest offense to a victimized group required enforced silence.

Americans did not ask to be world leaders. It was thrust upon them after Pearl Harbor. Instinctively, the country and its leaders realized such leadership required toughness and self-sacrifice. One wonders: did success bring its own perils? Does prosperity, the entitlement state and cultural tolerance undercut the underlying toughness leadership requires? The events of the past year tell us what the world would look like without a strong and engaged America. Has it become just too hard? Would we rather sit back and live off the wealth of our past? Or can we recapture the habits and values that brought a better life to our citizens and hope to the rest of the world?

Several strands of Pennsylvania’s environmental and economic history come together in the Loyalsock State Forest in Northeast Pennsylvania.

The exploitation of Penn’s Woods for building material and fuel during the 19th century to the point where forests were clear-cut as far as the eye could see, the regeneration of those forests starting more than a century ago with modern conservation practices and lately the development of the Marcellus Shale gas reserves as a new energy source are part of Loyalsock’s past and potential future. READ MORE »